I can check one thing off the baby to-do list; zippy is officially enrolled in daycare. As much as I’d love to keep Zippy home with me, I’d never finish my thesis. At the same time daycare is expensive, and my fellowship is ending this June. We decided a good compromise was to enroll Zippy in day care three days a week, and have her home with me the other two. Fortunately, the center we picked is extremely flexible.

I was pretty sure I wanted a day care center and not an in home provider. The in home providers here are licensed up to 8 kids per adult, including 2 infants, which just seemed like an awful lot for one person. The day care centers are licensed for 4 infants per adult, which seems more manageable to me.

I had been reading that the best day cares can fill up a year an advance, so I wanted to get a head start and started looking in mid January. I am not sure if it’s the area I live in, or the economy, or maybe I’m not looking at the ‘best ones’, but there were no problems with spaces with any of the centers we visited. Every day care was surprised I was visiting while pregnant. In fact, when I dropped off the paper work to enroll zippy today, one person asked me if I had brought in my baby girl to meet everyone. I replied by rubbing my tummy and saying “yup, she goes everywhere I do!” Everyone laughed. I guess my baby bump isn’t as noticeable as I think it is.

Despite what the books lead me to believe, there wasn’t a lot of difference between the centers we looked at. The day to day of the infants’ room was identical, right down to the activity planning sheets. The places were also within a small price delta of each other as well. I’m sure there are more differences for toddlers and pre-kindergarteners, but for infants the parents set most of the schedule. So we settled on one that gave me the best vibe, friendliest staff, and all around good feeling. I really liked the director of the day care center we choose. After I called to say we would be enrolling in her center, she even made sure I was aware of the coupon for free registration on the website. A woman after my own heart!

So now I need to get zippy’s “school supplies”. The director sent me home with a list of items to bring on Zippy’s first day. I was surprised at how much the day care center was requesting, including 2 sets of changes and a sleeper ‘just in case.’ It made me realize I am probably way under estimating how many clothes zippy will go through in a given day!

Posted in Family Life | Tags: Daycare, Pregnancy - Zippy